If it was footwear, this poignant, yet uplifting ANZAC drama would be the best pair of work boots a bloke could ever own: comfortable enough to slip into with ease, but durable enough to never fall apart no matter how adverse the terrain. Leigh Paatsch, news.com.au, 2 December 2014.

Oscar-winner Andrew Lesnie’s cinematography is exquisitely clean, as if the entire movie is one big touched-up photo. ... When Crowe flicks the switch to action hero mode the horse riding and fisticuffs feel like they belong in a slightly different movie, but he pulls it off. The 50-year-old Australian import/export may have been born in New Zealand, but that scenery-chewing lug of an actor – so assured, with a performance understated in ways the film’s key changes and tonal shifts are not – is the Man from Snowy River reincarnate, a moral warrior deprived of family and loaded up with true-blue grit. ... Audiences are likely to connect with it, as they are the rest of the film: a handsome crowdpleaser with a big heart. Luke Buckmaster, The Guardian.